When I decided to write about the topic of feng shui and your main door I soon realised there is so much to cover just on this one topic alone, so I’ve broken up this article into a series of sub sections discussing the main feng shui considerations when it comes to assessing the quality of qi (living/transformative energy) at your main door.

What Do You First See When Entering Your Home?

When a visitor to your home first enters via the main door, what do they see upon entering your home? This first initial visual inside your home tells us a lot about the occupants. Is a visitor confronted with a blank wall, a dark or well-lit entry, a beautiful artwork, a large mirror reflecting themselves or a beautiful view of the garden, fearsome statues, a stairway pointing directly towards the door, or perhaps a clear unobstructed view directly towards the back door?

Psychologically, the entry foyer conveys a lot about the occupants of your home, so it pays to keep the entry foyer (and main door) well maintained, clutter free, aesthetically pleasing to the senses and decorated in such a way as to tie in with your personal character and values as well as addressing the inherent flying star energy flow affecting the main ‘water mouth’ entry into your home.

The quality and character of qi in regard to the water star energy at your main door tells us a lot about the abundance potential of the home and ways in which you can attract and accumulate this energy, or if necessary, deflect and reduce qi.

If you regularly keep both the main door and rear door open at the same time and there is no furniture positioned between the 2 doorways, then energy is being regularly pulled into and out of your home between the open doorways too quickly before it has time to accumulate and meander into the rest of your home.

If there is a long straight stairway directly confronting you as you stand in the main doorway looking in, then energy is pushing towards you as you enter and thus unbalancing the qi flow. There are various ways in which to partially ground the energy at the base of the stairs, depending on the inherent energy and how far away the base of the stairway is from the main door.

For some homes, there is great potential to attract very fortunate energy via the strategic placement of an external water feature such as a pond or fountain which has the capability of communicating abundance energy directly towards the door which (if properly activated) can become a perpetual transmitter/receiver of the positive energy. Various Xuan Kong Water Formulae and Da Gua methodologies, when correctly applied, can help you tap into the purest and most potent source of qi at your main door and direct it into your home where it can quickly benefit the occupants.

Of course, not all main doors should automatically have ponds or fountains positioned nearby. In many cases, this is actually the worst thing you could do for the financial ‘luck’ of your home. Now when I say luck, I’m really referring to Labour Under Correct Knowledge. When you apply authentic Xuan Kong Feng Shui to your home and surrounding landform, it’s possible to ascertain an inherent energy blue print of your home which indicates the potential strengths and weaknesses, and the correct application of various Xuan Kong methodologies in connection to the 4 Pillars astrology of each individual living in your home, can help you make the most of the energy in that location.

And unfortunately there is no such thing as a ‘one size fits all’ scenario that can automatically be applied to every building around the world no matter where it’s located or when it was constructed. I wish! Do not assume the Southeast Sector or far left hand corner of your home is automatically your ‘wealth’ corner and so on. This is bogus and gets a lot of people into real trouble when they install large water features or paint walls red on the assumption that this cookie cutter approach automatically applies to every building.

If you place a dragon headed tortoise or continually waving mechanical cat near your main door, you cannot assume this figurine will magically attract good fortune to your home while you, meanwhile sit on your butt and do nothing. This is like believing, “when I grow up I will not have to get any education or have to work, observe, learn and grow in my experience in order to make money and find my life’s passion and purpose. I just have to win lotto or wait for my Knight in shining armour or my Queen of fortune to find and marry me”.

Good fortune symbols connect to your personal goals and aspirations via their symbolic meaning and help serve as positive reminders of the path you aim to take. They are symbolic - not magic!

Main Door on Different Side to the Facing Side of Your Home

Some people wrongly assume the main door to your home automatically equates to the ‘facing side’ when determining the fei xing/flying star orientation and subsequent Natal Chart of the building. For some this is certainly the case, however there are many cases where the main door is located on the side of the home or (depending on the surrounding landform) what would be considered the rear of the home. This can occur (for example) in regard to a home with a road, main door and garage on one side and an expansive view of the ocean or a lake on the other side.

Another example is apartments with an internal main door accessed from inside the building. Often the facing side of the apartment is the side where you have a large balcony attached to the main living area.

Ming Tang

When you stand in your main doorway looking out, what do you see? Is the view pleasing to the senses? One thing I’ve learnt over the 16 years I’ve been practicing feng shui professionally is that qi responds very well to beauty and aesthetics. If you take pride in your front yard and look after it and make an effort to ensure it is visually pleasing to the eye, then it will be less problematic for you in the long run.

The Ming Tang is the area outside the main door. This is a very important location because the energy generated and retained in this location can be very positive or negative for the occupants of the home and should be addressed accordingly.

If you have a water star 5 qi entering your property from the South and your main door also faces towards South, then this can indicate potential financial stress and misfortune for the occupants unless, for example, they are associated with the military career-wise or run a morgue as a business attached to their home, in which case it can actually be quite positive for generating income for their business and occupation.

If the water star energy in the Ming Tang is deemed unsuitable for the occupants of the home, then consideration needs to be put into deciding whether or not to mainly use an alternative door and how to make use of the character of the qi and re-balance the qi in the Ming Tang via strategic use of harmonising elements. For example, if you have a water star 5 qi at your main door and you are not able to make positive use of its inherent character, then metal element can be useful (via colour, sound and form) as well as higher ground in the Ming Tang and screening of the main door.

If there is negative landform affecting your main door (eg via a poison arrow feature from a pole directly opposite the main door) then it is a good idea to screen the view of the offending feature from the main door and redirect and/or calm the energy using the right elements in the surrounding landform.

I’m personally not a big fan of Bagua Mirrors. In many cases I don’t think the tiny mirror is really big enough or able to be correctly angled to properly reflect and disperse enough qi from a landform poison arrow feature aimed towards a main door. I’ve also come across quite a few with the hook at the back incorrectly attached which means the Qian Trigram (ie the Trigram with 3 straight lines) is not at the top of the Bagua.

I also think Bagua mirrors can psychologically convey to the outside world that there is something inherently wrong with this house or threatening this house, and therefore strongly recommend you remove a Bagua mirror if trying to sell your house. Some neighbours living across the road may also become offended when they realise a Bagua has been hung to repel their home (or something in their vicinity). Larger reflective surfaces designed into the main entry facade and/or careful screening can often produce much better and less threatening results.

That being said, it always makes me smile when I see stall holders selling feng shui trinkets with lots of Bagua Mirrors hanging around the exterior perimeter of their stall. Are they trying to repel their customers?

If you have a favourable water star qi in the Ming Tang outside your main door, this does not automatically mean you will enjoy excellent wealth luck in your home. You need to assess the character and element of the water star energy, how it interacts with the surrounding landform and work out the best way to attract and accumulate the qi with water. The Xuan Kong Feng Shui energy blue print (also known as the Fei Xing/Flying Star Natal Chart) is a guide as to potential qi flow however it does not indicate the qi is automatically there or tell you about the quality of the qi in relation to the surrounding landform. You must carefully observe all these factors in order to work out the best use and activation or reduction of energy.

If your front yard attracts a water star 8 qi and you also have land sloping down away from the main door and towards the road, with no fence or hedge along the front border and no water feature in the water star 8 location, then you have the potential for attracting positive abundance qi here however you are not currently gaining anything from the potential.

Facing a Line of Emptiness

Sometimes we come across homes that face towards a line of emptiness on the Luo Pan compass. When this happens, the energy is confused and can create a stagnant type of qi which connects to hoarders and intense clutter and/or confusion. In the property investing world, these are the types of homes known as ‘rogue homes’ – ie they are continually back on the market and often experience recurring problematic rental occupants.

Sometimes we need to work out a replacement chart reflecting the irregular energy flow for this type of home and many of these configurations generate quite stagnant energy that is not conducive to good health and harmony and is reflected in the problems experienced by the occupants.

When assessing the overall quality of qi flow affecting a home, a lot depends on the actual facing orientation of the building and the facing orientation of the external doors. If the facing of your main door taps into a Zheng Shen orientation with access to favourable flying star energies, then we can stimulate very positive feng shui for the occupants with clever Ling Shen communication via strategically placed water and/or harmonising element forms during specific timing that further communicates with Hexagrams associated with location, direction and the main bread winner of the home when measured from the centre of the main door.

If you have a main door that faces towards your personal Hexagram (according to your day or year of birth in 4 Pillars astrology), it’s possible to add yet another layer of support so the energy affecting your home can be communicated to you even when you are not physically there. This is especially helpful for households where one of the occupants is often travelling for work.

Colour and Symbolic Objects for Your Main Door

Some feng shui writers would have you believe a red main door is always lucky for you. Well, sorry to dispel that myth, but seriously, as I said before, there is no ‘one size fits all’ scenario when it comes to determining the quality and character of energy flow affecting your home. In some cases, a red main door may be awesome, however in other cases it has the potential to stir up problematic energy depending on the inherent energy flow and surrounding landform in the Ming Tang.

Many people place guardian statues at their main door and a favourite I see a lot is the lions or fu dogs. This is fine if you like the look and symbology of these items, however be assured their presence will not automatically prevent theft or people with bad intentions from entering your home. You still need to be pragmatic with your home security.

Also, if you do place guardian animal statues either side of your main door, have a look under the paws of each statue. The male will have a ball and the female will have a cub. Then standing outside facing towards your main door, make sure the cub and ball are on the inside paw of the guardians (ie between the parent guardians) and not on the outside paw.